History of Gouache

The Italian word "guazzo" means water paint or splash . Gouache originates from that word and is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. Gouache is a heavy, quick drying and opaque watercolour paint. It is more opaque than watercolours as the pigments are mixed with a water soluble gum substance in addition to water. White pigments or chalk are also added to enhance the opacity and give reflective qualities.

History of Acrylic

Acrylic paints became commercially available in the 1950's but were a mineral spirit-based paint. The water-based paints sold shortly after were a combination of binder, filler, pigment and water. Artists began to discover this acrylic paint and artist quality acrylics became commercially available in the 1960's.

The beauty of acrylics is that they can be water down to achieve a wash on a canvas similar to watercolour. Without water and the effect is like using oil paints. Fast drying, acrylics are very versatile and they can be used are many different surfaces unlike watercolour and oil and with unparalleled clarity. Layers can be built up to achieve texture whereas this would take years with oil due to the length of time it takes to dry and the pigment does not discolour or become brittle.

Acrylic paint is a modern media when compared with watercolour and oil. Artwork has been created in acrylic paint but artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Bridget Riley and David Hockney to name just a few.

There are now a huge number of artists producing canvas artwork using acrylics and making the optimum use of this versatile media. It has enabled canvas art to be bought by a wider audience due to its fast drying nature and artwork can be created much quicker so a real business can be made out of acrylic artwork.